The silk slipped around her hips as she moved sweetly through the crowds, drawing the attention of all the men. With her hair done, and her make up less than her usual half white, half normal and a smear of red lipstick, she was an amazing creature. Long legs, slender waist with curves in just the right places to bring every eye upon her. She smiled coyly, pushing a piece of unruly hair way from her sparkling green eyes.

Head to toe red. The best way to describe her. And diamonds. Floor length, strapless crimson gown that clung to her torso and loosened around her hips to fall in a cascade of rich red silk. Her hair was wrapped and twisted up into lose curls which spilled from a small, diamond clip at the back of her head. Diamonds also adorned her left wrist in the form of a silver and diamond Tiffany watch, and a tear drop pendant that hung an inch above her cream coloured cleavage, as if to draw even more attention to her chest. Red satin gloves and shoes with heels just enough to make a sound, as she was already 5'10 and did not need to dominate over men here of all places.

Things like that were better kept in the bed room.

She mingled effortlessly with the crowd, speaking and flirting with men and women alike, accepting offers of drinks, and chances for dinner or tickets to the opera which she would never use and end up scalping to some desperate up and comers in a weeks time.

It was all a game, and Mary was winning.

Even though her picture was plastered on every paper, every news station, no one seemed to make a connection to tie the wild haired, dread-locked, half white faced murderess and this sweet, gentle debutante with beautiful red hair and a genuinely pale face.

'No wonder they all end up broke or broken,' she thought to herself as she conversed with the witless riches of New York. She lifted her glass in a toast to something or someone who she cared not to notice and tipped the pure Austrian crystal to her lip and let the sweet taste of the champagne, straight from the very same named province of France, flow down her throat.

Nothing, and no one, could catch her. Not now, and not ever. The only two who could were not here at the moment, and as far as she knew, they were even unaware that she was here, attending a ball in honour of the man who's CEOs she had been laying, destroying and killing for months now.

She let a small chuckle rise from her throat at the irony of it all.

'Men are so stupid. I almost feel sorry for them,' she thought taking another sip from her glass and moving away from the group in the ball room and down a less crowded corridor. She used the excuse, "I must powder my nose," to escape from the vultures who wished to pray on her false virginity and chastity. Pathetic.

As she walked, Mary's eyes fell upon a man who's face, or at least his new one, she had recognised from the news of late. She set her champagne flute down on a table beside a pot of cut flowers and moved to him.

Her heels clicked delicately on the floor and her skirt swished as silent as a night along behind her as she moved into his line of view.

"Hello, Mr. Dent," she said with a warm smile, her hand resting on his forearm. She kept the coy, innocence but still stood out in the group of women who had surrounded him. Only non blond, only one not in blue, and she was taller than the girls even if she had been without heels.

The other women looked at her with contempt and she merely shook them away with a smoothness that didn't surprise her, but certainly shocked them.

"My, they certainly didn't do you justice with that photo they had on the news." Her tongue dragged out along her bottom lip, slowly, seductively. Her eyes burnt into his, giving away, to him, her intentions. Or at least what he could perceive as her intentions. "Maybe we'll have to get together, later, and talk... I've always been interested in the law."

Mary then turned and eyed the blondes with a stare so cold that the sun would shiver, and moved away from the small group without so much as another word. Leaving no room for Harvey to either accept or deny her offer. It was obvious that it was a demand rather than a request.

Mary went back to her champagne and mindless chit chat with the rich and well off, knowing that Harvey would soon enough approach her. She was, after all, irresistible, one way or another.



To Be Continued In...



I Know, I Feel...